She was born in Ankara in 1946. She took her first painting lessons during high school from renowned painters Eşref Üren, Turgut Zaim, and Selva Tamkan. In 1962, she held her first exhibition in the halls of Ankara College, and in the same year, one of her works was accepted into the State Painting Exhibition. After high school, she enrolled in the State Academy of Fine Arts and graduated in 1969 from the Higher Painting Department, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu’s studio, at the Istanbul State Academy of Fine Arts.
Between 1975 and 1981, she served as a faculty member at the School of Applied Fine Arts (today Marmara University Faculty of Fine Arts). She held her first professional solo exhibition in 1978 at Istanbul Taksim Art Gallery. In 1981, she established her own studio, and in 1984, she created original prints at Çamlıca Art House. The same year, she entered the field of cinema by working as an art director for Atıf Yılmaz’s film "Bir Yudum Sevgi" (A Sip of Love). In 1990, she co-directed the film "Benim Sinemalarım" (My Cinemas) with Füruzan, earning numerous awards at national and international festivals.
Between 1980 and 1989, she participated in recurring exhibitions in Istanbul such as "Günümüz Sanatçıları" (Artists of Today), "Yeni Eğilimler" (New Trends), and "Öncü Türk Sanatından Bir Kesit" (A Cross-Section of Avant-Garde Turkish Art). Karamustafa held her first international solo exhibition in Montreal in 1994. She collaborated on various joint projects with Marion von Osten and Ursula Biemann at Shedhalle Zurich. She also worked as a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Boğaziçi University, and the International Women’s University in Hanover.
In 2013, she had a retrospective exhibition at SALT Beyoğlu, followed by another in 2016 at the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum of Contemporary Art in Berlin. The artist continues to live and work in Istanbul.